Text Size

-

+

reset

There’s the Mitch McConnell Park in Bowling Green. Owensboro, located on the banks of the Ohio River, is home to the Mitch McConnell Plaza and Walkway. Western Kentucky University has the Mitch McConnell Integrated Applications Laboratory, while the University of Kentucky features the Mitch McConnell Center for Distance Learning. Each of these projects benefited from large servings of — in some cases, tens of millions of dollars — federal pork.

Before earmarks were banned in 2010 following the GOP takeover of the House, McConnell spent the previous decade earmarking more than $110 million in federal funds to Bluegrass State programs and projects that included his name, or that of his wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.

McConnell’s days as a profligate spender are now being used by Matt Bevin, his Republican rival in the 2014 reelection campaign, to slam him. When asked about the earmark-funded monuments back home, McConnell aides dismiss them as old news that have no relation to the frugal, budget-hawkish Mitch McConnell of today.

Yet one program on which you won’t find the senator’s name anymore is the McConnell Technology & Training Center, which used to be found in Louisville. Despite more than $90 million in federal funds, the MTTC and the nonprofit that ran it officially went belly up last year. It’s a classic case of a program or project that relies heavily on one lawmaker running into trouble when political fortunes shift.

The program was originally called the Manufacturing Technology Transfer Center, but officially changed its title in 2000 to include McConnell’s name. McConnell earmarked $6 million for the center in 1996.

The center’s strategy to add McConnell’s name to its title paid off for several years. After the name change, McConnell earmarked an additional $38 million for the MTTC from 2002 to 2007, according to news releases from his office and Kentucky news reports.

The U.S. Navy was the prime customer for the MTTC and Innovative Productivity Inc., the Louisville-based nonprofit parent organization that ran it. IPI also operated the National Surface Treatment Center, which focused on developing low-maintenance paint coatings for warships.

In 2004, McConnell’s office claimed — without any supporting evidence — that the MTTC “helped to save the U.S. Navy billions of dollars in maintenance and repair costs,” although the Navy suggested it was a much more modest $10 million annually. McConnell’s office later scaled back its claims to “more than $600 million” in savings for the Navy.

Having McConnell’s name involved also helped the MTTC snag federal contracts. The Navy awarded it $46.3 million in contracts from 2002 to 2007, Pentagon records show.

But that $90 million-plus in government funds appeared to have created at most about 40 to 45 jobs, according to local news reports, making it very expensive on a per-job basis.

Despite all that federal largesse, the nonprofit that ran the McConnell Technology & Training Center formally closed its doors in 2013, a move that followed several years of declining revenue, according to its tax returns. Annual revenue, including funds from earmarks, plunged from $5.2 million in 2008 — a reelection year for McConnell — to just over $25,000 in 2012.

IPI, the parent nonprofit, then transferred its last $2 million in assets to the University of Louisville Foundation. That school is also home to the McConnell Center, the Chao Auditorium and the McConnell-Chao Archives. McConnell received his undergraduate degree there in 1964.

Attempts to reach former IPI board members for comment were unsuccessful.

McConnell has received $14,225 in campaign contributions from IPI employees, plus another $7,000 from the lobbying firms that represented the nonprofit, one of which included former New York Republican Sen. Al D’Amato’s company, according to Federal Election Commission records.

After McConnell squeaked out a tough reelection victory in 2008, his earmarks for the MTTC appear to have ended.

The following year, IPI was looking for a new director, but that didn’t change anything. By 2012, with earmarks banned for McConnell and all other lawmakers, it was all but out of business, officially terminating its operations the following year.